Jonny Blair

Legend has it that Jonny Blair lived in a stone and turf 'black house' atop the small hillock now known as Jonny Blair's Garden close to Shepherd's Bridge in Glen Banchor, in the early 19th Century.

Becoming attracted to a lovely local lassie from a nearby township, he is reputed to have captured her and taken her to his house, where he fought off many attempts by her family and friends to rescue her, before, in the end, she became so enamoured of him that she refused to leave. This story is probably apochryphal, but it makes a good tale!

Jonny Blair did, however, make a beautiful garden atop the hillock, proving that sparse though the soil may have been, it was still possible to grow many plants.

Nothing now remains of the black house - or indeed, the garden, although the site is also identified as being that of a double-palisaded enclosure, from centuries before.